7/14/2025–|Last update: 12:32 (Mecca time)
The French weekly “Le Pen” magazine, with a liberal, faced, faces a major internal struggle in the aftermath of the announcement last April a social plan to reduce 52 jobs, most of which are from the editorial board and the introduction of artificial intelligence to compensate for these jobs.
The Liberation newspaper, which prepared a report on the topic, stated that the list included the entire audit and correction department (18 jobs), explaining that the administration, led by director Etienne Jernil, is seeking to integrate artificial intelligence tools, such as MERCIAPP and ARC XP, to help editing and replacing traditional roles such as auditors and editors.
This move comes largely as a result of the sharp decline in the magazine sales, as it lost a quarter of its readers over the past decade, so its sales volume were 384 thousand copies in 2014 and did not exceed 286 thousand copies in 2024, while the subscriber’s base decreased in half (135 thousand subscribers).
But the employees, especially workers in the audit department, expressed their deep doubts about the ability of artificial intelligence to simulate their delicate work, which is not limited to correcting grammatical and spelling rules, but also includes verifying information, improving method, and ensuring that the material is compatible with the editorial line of the magazine and ensuring the suitability and quality of the content.
They also highlighted the human “eye” capable of discovering mystery, contradictions and accurate mistakes that artificial intelligence may overlook.
But the director of Lubuan Etienne Jernell justified these changes by saying that the independent review service is out of time, and that he plans to move to the “editor-reviewed” system, which is common in the French press, is strengthened by two layers of “verification”, the first includes digital tools, including artificial intelligence, which will always remain under human supervision, while the second is the establishment of 3 positions ” To help use artificial intelligence and maintain liberation rules.
The magazine is seeking an approach aimed at “upgrading the level” and is inspired by the “Atlantic” magazine and is based on providing distinctive reports and using more streamlined design, but this ambition appears contradictory while reducing the number of employees and the rise of artificial intelligence, according to the Brasion.
The administration is also dependent on interactive activities and games and the price of the version increases (from 3.80 euros to 6.90 euros within 10 years).
In this plan, the French Workers Union sees an attack on employees stood in trade unions, and Liberation sees in the “Le Pen” case in France, in which for the first time, artificial intelligence is clearly mentioned in a plan to lay off workers, which highlights the challenge represented by the attempt to benefit from technological innovation and at the same time preserving human skills.